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Early Polls Show Most Top Democrats Lading Trump Head to Head; Hillary Clinton Popping Up During 2020 Discussions; Frenemies: Barr Rakes Multiple Jabs at Mueller in Hearing; UNCC Shooting Suspect Waives Right to Appear in Court; White House Lawyer Complained to A.G. Barr that Mueller Should Have Reached Obstruction Decision. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 02, 2019 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[14:30:00] ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: This just into us. The gunman accused in the deadly shooting on UNCC campus in court moments ago. We'll tell you what happened as we are also hearing more stories of survival and heroism.

Plus, in the 2020 race, new polls showing how the top Democratic candidates would match up head to head against the president. The surprises, including which one has the biggest lead. Van Jones is here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: A cruise ship, which is reportedly owned and operated by the Church of Scientology, like you are looking at there, under quarantine. Health officials in St. Lucia identified one case of measles on board and now the ship is requesting 100 doses of vaccines. Due to the highly infectious nature of the disease, no one is allowed to leave the ship. And the Church of Scientology has not responded to CNN's request for comment. Right now, the U.S. is in the middle of an outbreak. More than 700 cases reported in 22 states.

[14:35:16] It is the economy, stupid. We know that phrase. It worked well for Bill Clinton in 1992. So could it have the same effect for Donald Trump in 2020? A new CNN poll shows a majority of Americans, 56 percent, think President Trump is doing a good job on the economy. These are the best numbers to date.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHOUTE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We hate to sound like a cliche, but are you better off than you were four years ago. It's simple, it's the economy, stupid. I think that's easy. People will vote for somebody they don't like if they think it is good for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Helping Mick Mulvaney make their case, 20 percent of those who disapprove of President Trump still like how he's handling the economy. So what about the other areas? How is the president doing there?

When it comes to health care policy, 38 percent, as you could, see approve, 53 percent disapprove. Race relations in this country, those numbers similar, 39 percent saying they approve of how the president is handling things, 55 percent disapprove. And now overall the president favorability is 45 percent. Best since April of 2017.

And what about his challengers? The one President Trump seemed most focused on, former Vice President Joe Biden, getting a thumbs up from 51 percent of respondents.

CNN political commentator, Van Jones, joins me now to dig in.

This poll was done last week on the heels of the great economic information. The first quarter GDP far exceeded expectations. That is great news for the president and for his economy.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & CNN HOST, "THE VAN JONES SHOW": And for the country.

HILL: And for the country. Absolutely. Is it really all about the economy at the end of the day?

JONES: It could be. But I have to tell you what, if you are Donald Trump, you're vulnerable in two directions. On the one hand, if there's a downturn, and you got some bad news in China and other places and there's a downturn, then that argument goes away quickly. Even if there's not, you saw -- the Obama economy was healing and things were doing well and economy said things are getting better and the people for whom it was not doing better are resenting the message. So the question Trump has to ask and keep an eye on is, in the industrial heartland where he won, are the numbers looking good there and are those Obama to Trump voters getting a benefit from what is happening on the stock market or whatever else. You could have a similar repeat where you have economic good news that actually makes other people feel left out and resentful. And it is the economy and that is many things.

HILL: And we have a little time before the election.

JONES: Yes.

HILL: Just a little.

JONES: Just --

HILL: But still.

JONES: A year from now, there will be --

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: Let's play a game of "what if."

JONES: That's fine. HILL: So as we looked at the match-ups for the top Democratic contenders up against President Trump, and I mentioned the numbers that we saw for former Vice President Biden, who seems to be really focused, the president, as we see from his Twitter feed. But actually a point ahead of him, Beto O'Rourke, has been quiet the last couple of weeks but showing 52 percent in a match-up with the president. They're all holding pretty steady. The lowest numbers were Elizabeth Warren at 47 percent among the top contenders. That is still not a bad showing. But it is -- you know, it is May of 2019.

JONES: We're way out, way out. However, what you're notice is, I think, with Elizabeth Warren, she's probably at the bottom of where she's going to be. I think her actual floor and I think her floor is high. I think a lot of her proposals -- she's been coming out with stuff that is very popular and not just populist but popular proposals and I think you'll see her climb. Beto has been a mystery to people trying to figure out when -- if you got over-exposed and everybody jumped on him for reasons, to me, I thought were fair. Like he had some line in a magazine article people didn't like and they went nuts. They backed off and he got more popular when he backed off. Wait a minute. That is weird. Campaign less and win more. So Beto is hard to figure out. Elizabeth Warren, people think she -- I think she has a lot of room to grow and will grow. But the numbers are fascinating.

The most important thing that I would say is that the economic -- the message of the Trump campaign is the strongest card to play but it could be misplayed. And I think Democrats have to keep focusing on the people who are missing out on the economic boom. The boom for whom? Is it a boom for Trump's friends or a boom for Wall Street or boom for corporations? How many real people will be able to say that they really are actually better off when you have all of these costs for education and health care and other things that could be eating away at their progress.

HILL: And not just focus on the people but focus on the people and have an actual plan --

JONES: Yes.

HILL: -- to address their concerns and the issues that they're dealing with. Right?

JONES: That would be twice as nice.

HILL: Especially for the folks who need that now.

I want to get your take on Hillary Clinton -- speaking with Rachel Maddow last night. Had a lot of different things to say. Talking to some of the candidates. I'm curious your take. Is it helpful or not to have Hillary Clinton continuously pop up and now popping up as part of the 2020 discussion?

[14:40:14111] JONES: I think it is inevitable and, honestly, it is a wash. There are people who never want to hear her name again. But the reality is, however you feel about Hillary Clinton, and we all have our frustrations, she is brilliant. She's brilliant. She's smart. She's one of the people who has been around long enough to see the good and the bad and to see the crack and weaknesses. And the arguments she makes are very, very tough and good arguments. So she's one of the few people who could cut through. You don't want to -- don't say, Hillary Clinton, be quiet. So who, when they talk, will we talk about? She is a Democrat that is hard to ignore. And if she were saying stuff she disagreed with I might tell her to shut up. But she wouldn't listen any way and reality is she's saying stuff I generally agree with. So I'm glad she's out there.

HILL: Good to see you, Van. Thank you.

JONES: You're welcome.

HILL: Be sure to watch the CNN original series "THE REDEMPTION PROJECT" with Van Jones. See what happens when parents and the offender incarcerated for the life-changing injuries to their daughter meet face to face. You can catch that Sunday, at 9:00 Eastern, only here on CNN.

Robert Mueller and Bill Barr have known each other's decades. They were at their children's' weddings. Their wives attend Bible study together. But during that contentious hearing, Barr took multiple jabs at Robert Mueller. More on that.

Plus, you thought college tuition was already sky high. How about paying $6.5 million? The latest twist in the massive college admission scandal, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:46:05] HILL: Just into CNN, hate crimes in New York City has jumped nearly 70 percent compared to this time last year. The NYPD reporting hate crimes in April of this year were up a whopping 67 percent. There were 58 more incidents reported in 2019, most of them drawings of swastikas. As for overall crime, it is down nearly 7 percent.

We know all may be fair in love and war but you could say the same about politics. A long-time Washington friendship may give us the answer.

CNN politics reporter, Chris Cillizza, has been digging into the long- shared history of Attorney General William Barr and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Easy for me to say.

So they've known each other for decades.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER & CNN EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes.

HILL: But yesterday, I don't know, not really how I would imagine a friend of decades would talk about a friend.

CILLIZZA: A little frenemy-ish, Erica. And I say Bill Barr and Bob Mueller, it really gets me a lot. Robert Mueller and Bill Barr. They have known each other for, frankly, quite a long time. Since the 1990s. They met at the Justice Department and both in their 40s. High-rising Justice Department officials. And their wives attend Bible study together and evidence of some friendship or they ran in more circles. And the Mueller's did attend weddings of William Barr's daughters, which makes you think they were more than just acquaintances, right? But -- but, but, as you mentioned, yesterday, in the hearing, Barr didn't attack -- attack Mueller, but he kind of hinted at it. Let's play a little bit of that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Bob Mueller is the equivalent of a U.S. attorney.

His work concluded when he sent his report to the attorney general. At that point, it was my baby.

It was my decision how and when to make it public, not Bob Mueller's.

I don't consider Bob at this stage a career prosecutor.

He was also a political appointee and he was a political appointee with me at the Department of Justice. I don't -- you know, the letter is a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CILLIZZA: And you know, Barr followed up and was asked what he thought about the letter and he said, well, when I called Bob Mueller, I said, why the letter, why couldn't you just pick up the phone, which implies some level of friendship that Barr thought maybe that Mueller was doing this to sort of record it in history.

Look, these are two people who are, again, high-rising, high-achieving parts of the justice community. They clearly know one another and they clearly ran in similar circles at one time. To describe them as best friends or friends may be a reach. And the reason I say that, Erica, is because you remember, I think we have a picture of these two -- two gentlemen at some point. And remember -- there they are -- James Comey and Bob Mueller, and Donald Trump describes them as best friends. They are not best friends. Comey said, look, we know one another and we worked together, we were in this kind of broad circle, but we're not best friends. So the implying of friendship has been very difficult. These are people who, all three of them work together at one time or another, they clearly have similar interests and they ran in similar circles at one point. But conclusions about who is friends with whom, it gets us too much back into high school, which, by the way, gives me the chills. But it is very hard to know definitively how much each of them like each other, hang out with each other, and know each other, and consider one another friends now.

HILL: And the one thing we can agree on is I'm happy to leave high school behind, too.

JONES: The worst.

HILL: Thank you, my friend. More on our breaking news. An extraordinary development. The speaker of the House accusing the attorney general of a crime. We'll show you the moment that has Democrats pouncing.

[14:50:07] Plus, Attorney General Bill Barr doesn't show up at today's House hearing, so why did a Democrat start eating from a bucket of KFC?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: The UNCC's campus has reopened now following Tuesday's deadly shooting that claimed the lives of two students. The suspected gunman was supposed to make his first court appearance on murder charges today but waived his right to appear in court. His motive is unclear. CNN affiliate, WBTV, reports investigators say the suspect admitted he had been planning an attack for months and had researched the Sandy Hook massacre at length.

[14:55:05] The two students killed are 21-year-old Riley Howell and 19-year-old Reed Parlier. Howell is being hailed as a hero because he's the one who reportedly charged the suspect and tackled him down before losing his own life. Howell's family called him everybody's protector.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER OF RILEY HOWELL: Everybody ran and Riley chased.

UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER OF RILEY HOWELL: We are just beyond proud of what he was able to do.

UNIDENTIFIED SISTER OF RILEY HOWELL: He put others before himself. He always has. Saved a whole room of people just to make sure some people got out alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: CNN national correspondent, Dianne Gallagher, joins us from the courthouse in Charlotte.

Dianne, the suspect not appearing in court today.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, did not appear in court today. We do know he will use a public defender and have a bond hearing on the 15th of the month, unless the grand jury indicted him and then he will be transferred to the Supreme Court. It was unusual. Media from all over the world waiting on that. One of the rare cases where in a high-profile incident the person doesn't make the initial appearance.

Police still trying to work out exactly why this 22-year-old former student came into the building on the last day of class and opened fire into a corner of that classroom.

Again, the chief saying it had not been for Riley Howell, that we would likely be looking at far more victims. And again, the two who were killed and the four injured still recovering.

Trying to get back to normal or whatever normal is now for them in Charlotte on the UNCC campus. Erica, they are trying to figure out if they're going to -- what to do about final exams. It is up to the individual teachers. But they've said that graduation is going to go on as scheduled next week, a week from tomorrow. It will begin the series of graduations. One of those victims, even though she's in the hospital, she was shot, she still plans to walk at her graduation.

HILL: And what more could you tell us about the other victims, the other people who were injured and who may still be hospitalized?

GALLAGHER: So there are still -- still three of them who were in the hospital. But only one who is still in critical condition at this point. One of those, Rami Alramadhan, his father should be here shortly from Saudi Arabia. He was an international student, a freshman. I spoke with some of the students from the UNCC Saudi organization and they say he was shot in the stomach, in the body area, and also a bullet grazed his hand. But at this point, he's doing OK and his spirits are as good as you could imagine.

Again, one of the other students, she is still recovering. But she's going to walk at her graduation. That is her plan.

And one of them, he was released almost that night. He went in, he was treated and he got out.

The sports director of the "Niner Times," the student newspaper there, his classmates have been doing such an excellent job, Erica, of covering -- again, once again, students covering a shooting at their own school. Those student journalists making sure they are paying tribute to him, keeping everyone updated on his progress as he continues to recover from those gunshots.

HILL: Dianne Gallagher, with the latest for us, thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HILL: As we approach the top of the hour here, I'm Erica Hill, in today for Brooke Baldwin.

And we begin with breaking news on the Mueller report. We're learning about a letter from a top White House lawyer to Attorney General Bill Barr. That letter blasting the work of Robert Mueller, saying the Mueller report, quote, "suffers from an extraordinary legal deficit." White House lawyer, Emmet Flood, also laying out other arguments that don't bode well for Congress in its multi-front subpoena fight to get information from the president.

CNN White House correspondent, Abby Phillip, joining us now.

So, Abby, this letter from Emmet Flood accused the Robert Mueller team of playing politics. What else did we learn?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That is right, Erica. This letter memorializes the objections that the White House's lawyers have with the special counsel's report. Particularly the section on obstruction. Now they talk a lot about this idea that the report said that they could not exonerate the president on the idea of obstruction, but Flood calls that a political statement and said that the special counsel is violating the rules of -- for their existence by putting that into the report. They said that in this country you're innocent until proven guilty. And if a prosecutor wants to charge you, they'll charge you. If they don't want to charge you, they'll decline to do so.

[14:59:59] But here is what Flood said -- I'm reading from the report. He said, "The special counsel instead produced a prosecutorial curiosity, part truth commission report and part law school exam paper."